


Weak Spots

by beautifulterriblequeen



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ethari gets angry, Family is complicated, Forgiveness, Gen, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22958434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulterriblequeen/pseuds/beautifulterriblequeen
Summary: Soren's on Team Hero now, but when he explains how he knows what he knows about Runaan in order to help the others learn his true fate, Ethari is Not Prepared. Luckily, Callum and Rayla are there to help. Or are they just getting in his way?
Relationships: Callum & Rayla & Soren (The Dragon Prince), Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Ethari & Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 143





	Weak Spots

“…He didn’t die the night of the attack. Last I saw him, he was alive. And I just wanted to tell you—all of you—what I knew,” Soren finished. His voice trailed off uncertainly, and his gaze fell to the floor of the Storm Spire antechamber.

Callum winced at the guilt and discomfort on Soren’s face. He glanced at Rayla for her reaction, but her wide violet eyes were pinned on Ethari’s face.

The burly craftsman’s fists clenched. Storm clouds gathered in his eyes. “‘What you _knew_ ,’” he repeated in a low growl. “What coincidentally happened while you were standing innocently nearby?”

“Ethari—” Rayla began. She rested a hand on her dad’s powerful arm.

He shrugged her off easily as he stepped toward Soren. “You put your hands on my husband and dragged him into a dungeon. That wasn’t the will of the _universe_. That wasn’t his _destiny_. That was _you_! _You_ put him in a dark hole where no one could find him! _You_ left him at your father’s mercy! And everyone knows your father doesn’t _have_ any mercy!”

Callum and Rayla exchanged a look of alarm. But Ethari wasn’t finished. In fact, he seemed to be just getting started.

A dangerous burr entered Ethari’s voice, rasping like a blade across a whetstone. “Was that all you did to him? Did you hurt him? Try to pry secrets out of him?” Ethari’s hands knotted in Soren’s tunic and jerked him up onto his tiptoes, nose to nose.

“No, no, I’d never—” Soren’s eyebrows rode high, and he tugged at Ethari’s hands to no avail.

“Ethari, please.” Rayla put both hands on his forearm to sway him to let go, but he didn’t even glance over.

“Or did you leave such _tender mercies_ to your father? You may be a soldier, but you know the value of an elf when it comes to dark magic. Even if he’s in pieces. Did you watch as the dark mage stripped him down for parts?”

“N-No!” Soren struggled again against Ethari’s grip.

Callum saw Soren’s expression falter and knew he was feeling the familiar creep of guilt and inadequacy—things Viren had trained him to feel. He wasn’t going to let Rayla’s soft dad push Soren back there out of anger.

“Okay,” he interrupted, “that’s enough.”

“ _It’s_ _not enough_!” Ethari shouted, right into Soren’s face. He shook the Crownguard sharply. “It’s not enough. Runaan believes in forcing a balance.” His breath heaved in and out like a bellows. “Maybe I do, too.”

Ethari’s fist swung back.

Callum reached for Soren.

Rayla was faster.

She lunged into Soren and shoved him out of Ethari’s grip, causing him to stumble away to safety. But the craftsman’s heavy fist was a juggernaut that caught her across the temple and sprawled her on the floor.

“Hey!” Callum shouted. He fought back the urge to step between them. Rayla was the fighter, not him.

Rayla rolled up on one knee and glared up at Ethari, ready to engage again.

Ethari stared at his hand in horror. Glanced at Soren, then back at Rayla. “Why’d you do that? You _know_ what he did! Rayla, he… Runaan’s gone, and it’s _his fault_!” Ethari stalked toward Soren again.

Rayla leaped to her feet. “It’s not his fault, any more than it’s mine,” she called. “I failed in the duty Runaan gave me. I’m not sorry I spared that guard’s life. But I _am_ sorry that Runaan had to pay the price for it. You can’t single Soren out like this. Ethari, _please_.”

Ethari paused and turned back while Soren stepped away, creating distance between himself and Rayla. Callum’s rusty tactical lessons told him that Soren was protecting Rayla from getting in the way like that again. His chest ached to leap in and defend Rayla. His fingers twitched with lightning. But he needed to give her the chance to talk Ethari down first.

Ethari was nowhere near allowing himself to be talked down. His dark brows gathered like thunderstorms. “There’s no one else here I’m willing to hurt. Just him.”

Soren’s brows pulled tight. “Listen, I understand—”

“You know nothing, Crownguard!”

“Ethari—!”

“ _Everybody stop!_ ” Callum’s finger sketched a _Fulminis_ rune in midair, and his voice echoed around the room. Lightning crackled, arcing from the rune to the ceiling, to the floor, to Callum himself. His eyes widened. Any spell cast at the Sky Nexus would be ridiculously overpowered. He should’ve chosen something smaller.

“Callum…” Soren murmured, eyes on the sparking rune.

Ethari’s lips bared in a grimace. Seemed Rayla didn’t get all her stubbornness from Runaan.

Callum shivered at the touch of electricity. It wasn’t just from the rune. _Wow, I didn’t know that a moment could literally crackle with tension._

Rayla jerked off her assassin hoodie with its built-in sword holsters and hurled it across the floor toward Ethari. “Take them back,” she panted.

Callum’s hand fell back from the rune as Ethari lurched to a stop and looked down at the tangle of fabric and swords. Swords he’d made for her. His loving gift to keep her safe on Runaan’s mission.

“Rayla…” His voice softened. Hesitant. Confused.

Rayla was neither. Her voice rang as she said, “If this is how you’re going to be, then I don’t want your gifts! Take them back.”

Ethari stared for a long moment. He tried to regain his momentum and stalk after Soren again, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from Rayla’s swords. His shoulders slowly slumped. His hands unclenched. His face tightened with a whole different emotion.

Rayla waited, tense, hands at the ready. On the other side of Ethari, Soren held very still. Callum’s eyes flicked from Ethari to his _Fulminis_ rune and back again.

Very slowly, Ethari dropped to one knee and gathered up Rayla’s hoodie. His big hands carefully checked that her swords were tucked safely in their holsters, and he folded the fabric of her hoodie over them as if wrapping a present. When he stood again, he kept his head bowed. He hesitantly held the swords against his chest. Then his chin dropped sharply as he tried to hide his face, and he nodded to himself. “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I’m sorry.”

Callum let the rune vanish. Rayla darted to her dad and pressed her hands against his. When he lifted her face to hers, Callum could see a tear streak down his cheek. _He’s hurting too, like the rest of us._

“I’m sorry too,” Rayla said softly. “I… didn’t know how else to stop you.”

Ethari hugged Rayla’s hoodie. “I made these for you, to keep you safe. And here I am, hurting you.” One big hand brushed aside a lock of Rayla’s hair and gently touched the place he’d struck her. “I don’t know how to…” he began.

“No one really does,” Rayla said. “But we can all find out together.” Her gaze shifted to Callum, inviting him closer.

He joined her. “I’ve known Soren almost my whole life. He always tries to do the right thing. But sometimes… it gets hard to tell what that is, when your dad’s a dark mage. Right, Soren?”

“…Yeah. I’m just a guy out here trying to do whatever he can to make the world more awesome,” Soren said, though he didn’t step any closer. “And sometimes—a lot of times, recently—that means I’ve gotta make up for stuff I did before. Before I knew what my dad was really like. So… So here’s my plan. Gotta have a plan, right?” He dared to come around and stand a ways off Rayla’s other side, while Ethari’s eyes tracked him.

“Plans are good,” Callum said supportively.

“My plan is this,” Soren said with a bit of his usual cockiness. “I’ll help you find out what happened to him. Whatever came next, whatever we can learn. I’ll help. Because… and please don’t get too mad because I _promise_ this is a better thing than it sounds like… Runaan wasn’t the only person I put in the dungeon for my dad.”

Rayla glared at him. “ _How_ is that _good_?”

Soren rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, see, I didn’t want to put Gren alone in a dungeon cell too.”

“You locked up _Gren_?” Callum blurted.

“ _Shh_ , let him finish,” Rayla said. Her gaze stayed glued to Soren’s face.

“Y-Uhh yeah, sorry about that, too. But see, I put him in a spot where he could see down the hall to the cell where I put Runaan. Like… he was watching over him.” Soren tried a winning smile, but it faltered at everyone’s disbelieving looks. “Yeah, okay, I was lazy and didn’t want to walk all the way down another dark and creepy hallway to chain him up, alright, I admit it. He got the first-class spot right by the stairs so I could still get a good seat at the supper table. It was cobbler night. But listen. The _point_ is, whatever happened to Runaan to make his flower thingy sink only halfway? Gren’s the guy to ask.”

Soren’s second attempt at a winning smile had much better reception. Callum and Rayla exchanged excited glances. “Lux Aurea it is, then!” Rayla said. Then she turned to her burly dad. “Ethari… will you come with us?”

Ethari’s fingers pressed against Rayla’s hoodie as he thought for a long moment. He turned to Soren, looked the Crownguard up and down, and then extended his hand. “If this one’s willing to make amends, I should let him. Because that’s a balance, too, isn’t it?”

Slowly, Soren took Ethari’s hand and gripped it tight, nodding.

Tension Callum didn’t realize he’d been holding in his shoulders finally released, and he took his first easy breath in ten minutes.

Rayla smiled at him, then at Soren, and finally at Ethari. “Then I guess I’ll need my swords back.”

Ethari held out the soft package and pressed Rayla’s hand atop it with his own. His soft new smile said everything.

**Author's Note:**

> I yeeted this out in an hour and a half because it was so clear in my head. Hope it lands okay.


End file.
